Bill Douglas

A Film Artist
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80413-024-7
Verlag: University of Exeter Press

Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 592 g

Reihe: Exeter Studies in Film History

This book examines the work and art of Bill Douglas, thirty years after his death.

Douglas made only a small body of work during his lifetime: The Bill Douglas Trilogy, based on his deprived childhood in Scotland; and Comrades, his epic on the Tolpuddle Martyrs; but he is acknowledged by many as one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers. His films inspire a depth of passion in those that have seen them, and interest in his work has intensified over the years, both within the UK and overseas.

This is the first work to examine Douglas’s life and career through archive material recently made available to researchers. Editors Amelia Watts and Phil Wickham have carefully selected a range of voices—both scholars and practitioners—to reappraise Douglas’s career from a variety of angles. The book raises important questions about Douglas’s status as an artist, and reflects on his struggles within the film industry of the 1970s and 1980s in order to consider the attendant difficulties of working within a collaborative and commercial medium such as cinema. The volume also explores the wider legacy of this film artist, through the collection on moving image history he assembled with Peter Jewell, which became the foundation of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. It will appeal to film students and scholars, and the small but committed group of general readers who are interested in Douglas’s work.

The book has a foreword by the renowned filmmaker Mark Cousins, who, like many other contemporary directors, is a great enthusiast for Douglas’s work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wickham, Phil

Watts, Amelia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Einzelne Filmschauspieler, Filmregisseure, Drehbuchautoren

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Mark Cousins

Introduction PHIL WICKHAM AND AMELIA WATTS

DOI: 10.47788/BNMQ1583

PART I: BILL DOUGLAS IN CONTEXT

1. Bill Douglas and the British Film Industry during the 1970s and 1980s AMELIA WATTS

DOI: 10.47788/ORAD1934

2. The Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Collection PHIL WICKHAM

DOI: 10.47788/LCOD8685

3. Bill Douglas’s Favourite film—Il Mare AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER JEWELL BY ANDY KIMPTON-NYE

DOI: 10.47788/JVKN9671

4. The Unseen Films of Bill Douglas ANDY KIMPTON-NYE

DOI: 10.47788/NIQE6697

5. Bill Douglas’s Working Papers AMELIA WATTS

DOI: 10.47788/PEJM9176

PART II: BILL DOUGLAS’S FILMS

6. His Ain Folk? ANDREW GORDON

DOI: 10.47788/QIRI6018

7. Exploring Questions of Theory and Practice within the Bill Douglas Trilogy JAMIE CHAMBERS

DOI: 10.47788/OWCS3651

8. True Comrades: Bill Douglas and Bertolt Brecht CARA FRASER

DOI: 10.47788/MNMN3566

9. Returning to Comrades DAVID ARCHIBALD

DOI: 10.47788/UUIE5434

PART III: BILL DOUGLAS’S LEGACY

10. Bill Douglas’s Critical Reputation and Legacy DUNCAN PETRIE

DOI: 10.47788/EBRX4961

Notes

Select Bibliography

Filmography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Watts, Amelia
Amelia Watts is completing a PhD at the University of Exeter, where her research focuses on the British film industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Her project draws extensively on the work of Scottish writer-director, Bill Douglas, and utilises his largely unseen Working Papers.

Wickham, Phil
Phil Wickham is curator of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter. He was previously a curator at the BFI and has written extensively on British film and television. He also teaches film courses at the University.